US censors our ‘femiman’

Melbourne “femiman” Andrej Pejic’s naked chest has been censored by US bookstores, who branded his nipples too racy for shoppers.

US chains Barnes & Noble and Borders are covering up New York magazine Dossier Journal, which shows Pejic with his hair in rollers, removing his shirt.

Dossier creative director Skye Parrott said both stores fretted that customers could mistake Pejic for a topless woman.

“It seems that it probably made people uncomfortable,” Skye told the US website Huffington Post.

“But that’s part of what’s interesting about the cover . . . is that it’s playing with those ideas of gender roles.

“He’s topless, you can see that he’s a man, but if you look at his face, he looks like a woman and he’s so beautiful.”

Pejic’s agent Matthew Anderson said the censorship was “eye rolling”.

It was the first time Pejic’s breasts had been declared too saucy to see.

“I think it’s really silly. It’s ridiculous,” Anderson said.

“He’s a slight framed person . . . just because he’s not built like an AFL player, why should people be offended?”

University of Melbourne social science lecturer Dr Lauren Rosewarne said the bookstores’ moral shock was “a pre-emptive strike they are striking before accusations are made of them peddling pornography”.

“The story highlights that society has some very rigid expectations of what it means to look like a man and to look like a woman having a model that has made a career out of blurring these gender lines is confronting.”